CHAPTER ONE
You don’t want Emily Swenson, Lawyer with Money, to confront you at a breakfast bar. Honestly, you don’t want her to confront you anywhere, because Emily, despite her peach silk blouses and Vogue-layout makeup choices, is an awfully scary lady. But a breakfast bar such as the one I was at, with its all-you-can-eat waffles and syrup packets that you had to individually unwrap, was not the natural habitat of such a person. One doesn’t bump into Emily Swenson in a place that sells an omelet called “The Heart Attack.” If you encounter her there, it means that she was looking for you.
I might have had a head wound, but I could at least put that together. Also, she had slid over a note that said: “Would you like to become an industrial spy?”
So there’s that.
My name is Dahlia Moss. I’m twenty-six years old, burdened with college debt, and I am not a detective. Previously, I would have led off with “not a detective,” and also I would have written it in all caps. Maybe underlined it.
But now I’ve successfully solved two cases. Yes, they were solved somewhat violently and very chaotically, but murderers were caught and deaths were avenged. Maybe I should stop saying that I’m not a detective altogether, but it still feels true.
We’ll get to Emily’s note in a second, but we also need to talk about my head wound, because you and I need to get on the same page.
As you may or may not know, I was a bit concussed at the end of my last adventure. It’s unseemly for me to be going on about it now, a full story later, because Sam Spade gets concussed three or four times a book, and after about three paragraphs he never mentions it again. There are rules about that sort of thing, which is that detectives aren’t supposed to complain about minor injuries from previous books.
Forget that, says I. And who knows, maybe Sam Spade couldn’t remember the earlier concussions. Maybe he had some memory-loss issues. This can happen, or at least, that’s what I’ve read on WebMD.
Anyway, my head smarted, and while I had felt worlds better after getting a nice night of sleep, I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t thinking about my vaguely blurry vision for the sake of your narrative smoothness. The head injury was a thing, and it’s going to stay a thing for the rest of this story. So get used to it.
That clear? Now let’s talk about the note.
“Would you like to become an industrial spy?”
First, who walks around with notes like that? Emily Swenson, obviously. Maybe she had them for every occasion, and if she had reached in the wrong pocket I would have gotten a note that said: “Up for some arson?” or “I need a man killed.”
To be fair to Emily, it wasn’t like this was printed on a custom-made card. She had jotted it down on the back of a napkin. Presumably because she didn’t want everyone else at the table to hear her probably illegal, certainly unethical offer.
I had been having breakfast with Charice and Daniel, who were being more lovey in public than should be allowed before ten in the morning. I’m not entirely against public forms of affection, but in broad daylight?
Charice pretended not to notice my surprise at the note as I excused myself from the table.
“Oh, Emily,” I said. “You are here to return that library book I loaned you?”
“Sure,” said Emily. “That’s why I’m here. You want to step out with me for a second?”
I would say that my roommate, Charice, pretended not to be interested, but I’m not sure she was pretending at all because she was basically wearing Daniel on her face. From the looks of it, Emily Swenson could have opened a suitcase full of money and said, “I need you to turn this into cocaine,” and Charice still wouldn’t have been interested.
We stepped out to Emily’s car, which was precisely the sort of luxury car that a super-rich person who doesn’t care about cars would purchase. It was simultaneously silver and nondescript and yet paradoxically made of money. It smelled like lemon verbena on the inside, and the leather seats were already warm.
“So,” I said, “how have you been?”
Emily smirked, amused by my need to make small talk.
“Let’s talk about the job I have in mind for you.”
This was probably for the best, because I couldn’t tell you the first personal detail about Emily Swenson, which made shooting the breeze somewhat challenging. Sometimes you encounter people in life who are nothing but surface. Beautiful polished people with nothing underneath. Emily Swenson wasn’t that exactly—there was plenty going on in there, but hell if I had any clue what it was.
“Sure,” I said. “You want me to be an industrial spy? Is this what you do, incidentally? Just go around giving people odd requests?”
“Not everyone,” said Emily. “Just people with talent and no criminal records.”
I preened at the talent line more than I should. But, like they say, flattery gets you everywhere. And not having a criminal record is almost always a boon.
“What are you looking for?” I asked.
“It’s not what I’m looking for, Dahlia. It’s never about what I’m looking for. It’s about what the client is looking for.”
“Who’s the client?”
“Some general advice—that’s rarely a question that you should ask when someone approaches you with a task they’ve surreptitiously written on a napkin.”
“I like to know who I’m working for.”
“You’re working for me,” said Emily simply.
“And you’re working for?”
“Someone who wishes to remain nameless.”
“Is it Satan?” I asked.
“Please,” said Emily, “you think Satan doesn’t already have people?”
“Well, what’s this about, then?”
“There’s a small game-development company here in St. Louis called Cahaba Apps. Ever hear of it?”
I hadn’t actually, but I didn’t pay much attention to local stuff, which was mostly racist and depressing in equal parts.
“You haven’t heard of a game called Ruby Rails? I thought you might have played it.”
I knew that Emily Swenson wasn’t trying to start something, but telling someone that “you thought they might have played Ruby Rails” was effectively just spitting in their face and calling them a filthy casual. Ruby Rails was the sort of game that your grandma would play, assuming she could figure out her phone.
I had played it, actually. Honestly, everyone sort of had. It was the new Bejeweled. Not a match-three game, but the same kind of idea. It was only halfway a game—it was mostly kind of a Zen-like activity.
In the game, you’re running a train system, and you’re delivering gems—in games like these it’s always either gems or candy—from mines to towns. And you’re delivering people to mines. And you build houses and hotels, kind of like Monopoly. Actually describing it makes the game seem complicated—because you need more gems to build more track, that’s important—but in practice it’s incredibly straightforward and relaxing. It’s like it had been developed by Enya.
It’s the sort of game you play while waiting in line at the DMV is what I’m saying.
“Yes, Emily,” I told her. “I am familiar with Ruby Rails.”
“See,” said Emily. “I knew you would be perfect for this.”
“What is this?”
“The company that developed the game is based here in St. Louis, and they’ve been purchased by a larger developer, who had a plan for the IP. They’re developing a new game together, and there appears to be some holdups.”
“The new game is significantly behind schedule, and I’ve heard that the company is entirely dysfunctional. I’d like you to go in there and let me know what’s happening.”
This didn’t sound so undoable. It’s not like I would be breaking into a safe and stealing company secrets. Although, the whole thing was still a lot to take before waffles.
“Okay,” I said. “First of all, I don’t know what you know about the gaming industry, but under what possible auspices could I possibly be there? I can’t code; I’m not an artist; I can’t play a musical instrument, much less compose.”
“I’ve never understood,” said Emily, addressing me with those engulfing green eyes of hers, “why you also so strongly point out all the things you cannot do. If you outlined the things you could do with half the enthusiasm of your failings, you wouldn’t need my little job.”
As insights went, this was both depressingly accurate and yet entirely off the mark. Accurate because Emily was certainly right—it was easy to get me going on all the things I’ve failed at. But off the mark because I wasn’t at all disappointed about Emily’s job. I was excited.
“I just want to make sure I have a good cover story,” I said. “What will I be doing?”
“You’ll be a secretary,” said Emily. “Receptionist, actually. And just as a temp, for a few days.”
Excellent. Answering phones is definitely something I was qualified for.
“And what am I looking for?”
“On day one? Just get the lay of the land.”
Before I could ask any more questions, Emily Swenson gave me a check. I’m not going to put the amount here, because (1) I’m starting to worry that the IRS might be reading these things and (2) it was not lay-of-the-land money. From the amount of money, arson was, to my mind, still on the menu.
“What do you want on day two?” I asked. “Me to kill a guy?”
“The client would like some code,” said Emily. “And by some code, I mean all the code. As much code as you can get.”
Okay, so maybe I would be breaking into a safe and stealing secrets.
“You want me to steal the code of an upcoming game? That’s … incredibly illegal. It’s probably two or three felonies.”
“No one is going to use the code that’s stolen,” said Emily. “It’s not as if the client is going to publish it or steal from it or leak it onto the Internet. They just want to take a peek, to see if they can figure out what keeps delaying the game.”
Despite Emily’s suggestion that I didn’t need to worry about the identity of the client, I couldn’t help but wonder: Who else but the parent company would care why the game was being delayed in the first place?
Emily could read my mind, as ever.
“I can’t give you details,” said Emily. “But our client is not so external a party as you might imagine. The developers are being very cagey about the code, and there’s an idea that perhaps someone is sabotaging the game from the inside.”
“You want me to become an industrial spy to catch an industrial spy?”
“You fight fire with fire,” said Emily crisply.